Page 14 - spaces4learning, November/December 2019

Photo courtesy of IPsens
vice president of Parking Sense. “One California uni- versity that installed parking guidance found that the time required to find a parking space quickly dropped from a half hour to five minutes.”
According to Waal, one of the most exciting recent parking guidance advances has been the development of mobile apps that can tell driv- ers where they can find park- ing and how to get to those parking facilities. The apps are connected to the campus parking guidance system and receive constant utilization
data, so drivers can find out where parking is available at that par- ticular moment.
“This is a terrific feature because it makes parking on campus much more convenient,” says Waal. “It
also significantly reduces congestion on
campus roadways because people aren’t
driving aimlessly searching for parking. Campus transportation managers love it because they aren’t getting dozens of calls a day asking for help.”
Parking software has also come a long way in recent years and, according to Gorm Tuxen, president of IPsens, the most exciting advancement has been the intro- duction of open IP parking systems. With open IP, universities are able to customize their software to meet their own individu-
al needs. And as campus parking needs evolve, or as the parking technology suite grows, the software can be adjusted as necessary.
“There are a lot of different front-end solutions, including sen- sors, access and guidance systems, and LPR,” says Tuxen. “It’s im- portant for campuses to utilize parking software that can be in- tegrated dynamically to the back-end system to bring everything together and let all of the different technologies share data with each other. You don’t want to be locked into a data management system that’s linked to a particular hardware system.”
David Lieb agrees that data is an important consideration and that many colleges and universities don’t have a firm grasp of what their data can tell them.
“Campus parking organizations have much more data than they often realize, or know how to use,” says Lieb. “Parking technolo- gy is constantly collecting information about how many people are parking every day, when parking facilities are busiest, and which fa- cilities are busiest. At the same time, bike-sharing and ride-sharing programs are collecting user data, as are campus transit systems.
“Colleges and universities need to have systems and skilled per- sonnel in place to collect and analyze that data,” continues Lieb. “When they do, they will find that they have a lot of valuable
information that can help them determine how they can run their parking more effi- ciently, whether it’s time to develop addi- tional parking, and whether other demand management strategies could be beneficial.”
Curb Management
Another important parking trend for colleges and universities is that curb man- agement is becoming a much more preva- lent issue. That’s because people traveling to and from colleges and universities aren’t just arriving in cars. In a campus setting people are also relying on bicycles and bike-
Curb management is becoming a much more prevalent issue because campuses often have many curb spaces and they need effective curb management strategies.
YOU DON’T WANT STUDENTS AND STAFF TO FEEL TRAPPED JUST BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE THEIR OWN CARS ON CAMPUS.
14 NOV/DEC 2019